Raglin
by Tanya Reed
Summary: Someone else knew what happened that night.


Raglin

by Tanya Reed

This story is what I call a gimme—a story that comes to me in its entirety and that I sit down and write quickly from beginning to end. This rarely happens, so I consider these stories gifts. Thanks, as always, to my beta, phalangesbyfive. I also want to thank my friend x_nothing_here for inspiring me while I was talking about what might have happened ten years ago. I never would have guessed that a character mentioned in passing would demand his own story.

Spoilers: Any episode that mentions Kate's mother.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything Castle. I don't even own Raglin.

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His name was Raglin. He had been a detective once. It hadn't been that long ago, but it seemed as if lifetimes had passed since then.

He didn't like to think about those days. Most of the time, he spent his retirement watching mind numbing television and working in his garden. Reading and talking to his grandchildren on the phone also helped to keep his mind in the present. Carefully, day by day, he built up a wall between himself and his memories.

Now it was time to tear down the wall. He had to face the things that he had done and the people he had hurt. He hadn't been a very good cop.

Raglin mulled this over as he sat on his couch and took another drink out of the bottle in his hands. An hour before, his fingers had roughly broken the seal. It was half gone already.

He knew he was a mess. He'd always been a mess. His mother had told him so when he was a child, and her discipline had been harsh and rough. His wife had told him so when she took his children and moved to another state. Coonan had told him so the first time he placed a bribe in Raglin's shaking hand.

Coonan. That's what all this was about. Even from beyond the grave, Coonan was controlling him. All that fear and money, so many years.

Raglin took another drink.

The memories had been worse since he read about Coonan's death in the paper.. After Raglin retired from the force, he had been able to deny them and lock them away. He didn't have to think of the records he'd changed or the ME he had distracted. And he didn't have to see her face.

Raglin took another long pull of the yellow alcohol. It burned as it went down his throat, but it was a good burn.

With determination, Raglin pushed himself up onto shaky legs. He walked across the room to a small desk, thinking about how he would finally be rid of the guilt. It had been there, eating away at his belly for a long time. It was the reason he had locked everything away. All he needed to be free of it was the right key, and, tonight, the right key was a pen.

He reached into a desk drawer to grab one. He also found several sheets of yellowed paper. Raglin nodded his head firmly as he put both on the desktop. He would not be controlled by fear anymore.

As he sat at the desk, he let his mind conjure up the face once more. Over the years, it had come to represent his guilt. It looked at him accusingly for all the lies he had told and all the dirty things he had done.

Her name was Kate.

He moved his bottle to his left hand so that he could drink and write at the same time. Since Coonan's death, the whiskey had never been farther than an arm's reach away.

"Dear young Kate," he wrote. He knew that she had grown up and joined the force. In fact, she was a detective in her own right now. He had seen her around the city, solving murders in her leather jacket with a line of concentration between her brows. She even led her own team. Raglin had seen them too, an Irish boy and a Hispanic, trailing behind her, their eyes filled with respect.

Even so, in his mind, Raglin would always see her as she had been ten years before. Green eyes full of pain. Pretty face white with shock and grief. That face had been made for laughter, but he'd never seen her laugh. He'd never even seen her smile. All he'd seen were her tears.

He knew that she hated him. He knew the moment he told both her and her father that Johanna Beckett had been a victim of gang violence. He would never forget the devastation in her eyes. Those eyes burned into him as he turned and walked away.

Raglin took another swig.

His handwriting was getting shaky, but he couldn't stop. He had to tell her what happened. He had to get rid of his guilt.

Raglin took one shaky breath, and then he started to write again. He let it all flow out of his pen. He told of how a powerful but corrupt man had taken steps to eradicate anyone who knew of his wrongdoing—anyone who couldn't be paid off, anyway. Raglin spared no detail. He was purging his soul and freeing himself of his own personal ghost.

Eventually, his hand grew tired. Sweat poured down his craggy face. Still he wrote. He wrote until he couldn't write anymore. Then, he carefully read over his words. Everything seemed even more horrible when he looked at it in black and white. Self-loathing clawed at him.

The bottle was almost empty now. His eyes were blurred, and he had to try twice before he could get the envelope out of the box. He cursed when he realized he put the stamp on upside down. His letters were almost a scrawl as he wrote "Detective Kate Beckett" and the address of the Twelfth Precinct on the front under the extremely crooked stamp.

He was unsteady as he made his way outside and to the small red box on the sidewalk. As he slipped the letter inside, he took one last look at the city that had hurt him almost as much as he had hurt it.

Drinking the last of his bottle, he stumbled back in and down the hall to his bedroom. For the first time in many years, he was not afraid. Soon, they wouldn't be able to reach him anymore. He was finally free.

Raglin had a smile on his face as he picked up the old service revolver lying in the middle of his small, shabby bed. He hadn't fired it in years, but he knew it still had enough life left in it for this last job. And so did he.

As he put the gun to his head, his last thought was for Kate. He hoped the answers he wrote to her would give her the same peace they had given him.

The end


End file.
